- Trump will get his military parade, at a cost of up to $45 million. That comes as the administration cuts defense spending and called for major cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The parade will take place on June 14.
After having to abandon plans for a military parade in his first administration because of cost, President Donald Trump will get one next month, but it won’t be cheap.
The June 14 parade will come with a price tag that falls between $25 million and $45 million, according to reports from both the Washington Post and Reuters, quoting an Army spokesperson. That’s less than the $92 million estimate officials came up with in 2018, but comes at a time when the Trump administration is making controversial cuts in the Department of Veterans Affairs and other areas of the military.
The parade will involve hundreds of Army vehicles, thousands of soldiers, and dozens of warplanes. Service members will sleep in government office buildings, including the Agriculture Department and General Services Administration, for days as part of the prep for the showcase.
The parade, officially, is meant to commemorate the Army’s 250th anniversary. It also happens to fall on Trump’s 79th birthday. Trump has wanted a military parade for most of the past decade, however, envisioning soldiers marching through Washington and tanks rolling down the city streets. The idea started in 2018, following his attendance of Bastille Day in Paris. He told aides on Air Force One on the trip home that he wanted to create a similar show of military force in the U.S.
Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, at the time, wasn’t afraid to challenge Trump, responding to Trump’s announcement that he had canceled the parade with a fierce tweet of her own, writing “Yup, I’m Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad).”
There has been no formal pushback to this proposal. However, Bowser did say last month that she had concerns about the effect of tanks on the city’s roads.
“If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads,” she said.